Good Morning everyone! I am waiting to get Krista up this morning because last night she went on a Pub Crawl and didn't end up making it home until about 1AM. Maybe this will give me a chance to actually write a proper post. I have taken like 600 pictures so far and still can't get on a computer where I can upload any, so hopefully those will come later.

The language barrier I feel has been our greatest adventure yet on the trip. Last night as I was attempting to check messages on my blog a Spanish man came up and asked me something ;in Spanish obviously. I had no idea what he was talking about and since he spoke no English my responses made no sense to him. After about 20 minutes of mimeing and writingdrawing in my notebook, I succeeded in helping him to look up the forecast for next week in Liverpool and Amsterdam. If only that had been my first language adventure of the day, earlier I had a fun trip to the pharmacy to pick up some medicine for the cold I acquired in France. It was another fun game of gestures, only this time with higher stakes since I don't read Italian and I didn't want whatever they gave me to conflict with my prescription or be a drug I'm allergic to. Finally the pharmacist said a word I understood, Expectorant! I quickly fired off one of the three Italian words I know, "si". She pulled a bottle off the shelf and I recognized the Italian form of the active ingredient that I'd been prescribed in college for the same thing. By the way that is a whole other story, in Europe the over the counter medicines are actually like slightly weakened versions of the prescription medicines we get at home. They buy them over the counter here because of the socialized health care.

Krista and I have also been eating a ton since being in Italy. We had a delicious pizza and I learned that in Italy if it does not say Mozzerella, then it comes with NO cheese on it. I mean my Marinara pizza (tomato, garlic, and basil). Krista also introduced me to Gellato which we have eaten every day since being in Italy. It is pretty much fancy Italian Ice cream. Any weight we lost in France is going to be added back between the pizza, bruschetta, paninis, gellato, and pasta. Not to mention the Vino, well if I ever manage to get over this stinking cold. (if that last paragraph didn't make much sense I apologize I was chatting as I typed with the hot from Canada who stayed in our room last night.)

As for sight seeing it is still going well for the most part. We had to redo our plans yesterday because it was apparently a Catholic holiday, so the Vatican and several churches were closed. We did go very early to the Colloseum where I collected a cool souvenir off the ground, lol. It was really quite massive and just so old. We then walked over to Pallantine Hill and the Roman Forum. We got to see Julius Ceasars grave and just tons of ruins. No matter where you go though you can always see the dome of St. Peter's Basillica in the distance. We also tried to go to the Pantheon to see the Occulus, but it was closed I am hoping that we can maybe get over to see it later, but if not its ok because we did get in a stop at the Trevi Fountain. We each tossed in a euro coin to ensure our return to Rome. And yes we tossed with our right hands over our left shoulders. The Trevi fountain's water is very pure it is the mouth of the Virgin Aquaduct that runs below Rome. It is very easy to stay hydrated in Rome because they have fountains everywhere that you can drink from. Krista and I have even named and ranked the three water sources in Rome, we call them the Virgin water (from the Virgin Aquaduct), the holy water (from the Vatican), and the Ruined Water (from the Colloseum area). The Virgin water is our favorite. Well I should go wake Krista up. She is planning on sleeping on the beach all day today in Anzio while I explore the battlesites of World War II and Operation Shingle. I will try to post again before we leave Rome as we are never certain where our next point of internet access will be.

Ciao,

Jennifer